We Live in Deeds
by StrangeLittleSwirl
Summary: Her name was Shilo Wallace once. The aftermath of Opera, and the beginning of a new chapter in the city's history.
1. Horse's Head

**Title: We Live in Deeds  
****Author: strangelittleswirl**  
**Fandom: ** Repo! the Genetic Opera**  
Pairing: **Graverobber/Shilo (eventually)**  
Rating:** PG-13/T+ (will go up)**  
Word Count: **5761**  
Summary: **'Her name was Shilo Wallace once.' The aftermath of Opera, and the beginning of a new chapter in the city's history. **  
Warning: **Language, violence, and inferences to mature themes.**  
Disclaimer: ** I own nothing. I'm merely playing in the genius world created by DLB, DS, and TZ . I do not have any claims to the poetry used either.

* * *

Her name was Shilo Wallace once.

It was long ago, before the book she carried with her had lost its cover and its binding cracked, before she had scars on skin that covered muscles deceptively small for their hidden strength, before the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

Shiloh-Hebrew in origin, meaning "His gift". Her father had told her it was the name of an important battle in the American Civil War, and had shown her-through the plastic surrounding her bed-a section in an old history book about it. Years later someone else would tell her that it was also the name of a prophet of the Messiah in the Bible-only _he_ would know that. She had noticed that there was only one additional letter that kept her name from meaning the underground facilities where they stored and launched missiles.

She had a great many names now, but as she looked about the room and the people collected in it, in this secret little room, she wondered if this would end with her being called a failure.

* * *

_Four Years Earlier_

"Shilo Wallace," said the instructor, looking out across the group of primly dressed girls in school girl skirts and vests and blouses. Beneath the individual tech stations-one of the only academic facilities to offer this ability! the brochure exclaimed-rows upon rows of bleached white knee-high socks sprouted out of the school-regulated saddle shoes.

The school was situated in the very best part of town. Amber Sweet lived down the street from the facility, and with its wrought-iron fence and sturdy brick edifice, it seemed to have a real air of aged distinction about it. In truth Rotti Largo had only just had it built prior to his death, and there were parts of the building that still smelled of just-milled lumber.

Below her classroom window, Shilo could see workers in Geneco jumpers scrambling to remove the large, metal letters that spelled out 'The Rottisimo Largo Preparatory School for Ladies", and replacing them with "The Amber Sweet School For Girls". Seeing the word 'for' capitalized caused the side of Shilo's mouth to twitch and rise to form a smile; t he standards in the schools teachings were suddenly very obvious.

"Miss Wallace? Miss Wallace."

Shilo returned her gaze to the front of the room, where a middle-aged woman was holding a clipboard and looking disapprovingly at Shilo. She was a larger woman, having poured herself into a suit that did not quite fit, and the frown now contorting her features caused her jowls to be even more prominent.

"Miss Wallace, it is considered a _privilege _to attend this institution. In the future, _do_ show your

understanding of this idea by paying attention."

But 'Miss Wallace' had not asked for this privilege; very shortly after the death of her father-two days after his hasty burial, to be exact-that same limousine had rolled to a stop outside the Wallace brownstone, and Shilo had been quickly packed up and brought to the school. After all, the matter of Rotti Largo's will had still not been completely confirmed, and was it not so very nice of Amber Sweet to be paying for all of her expenses? the principal had asked, eyeing the large portrait of their new benefactor as she said so as if Miss Sweet was some sort of saint.

Amber Sweet, Shilo believed, was simply trying to keep Shilo in one place for the time being, and to keep her under her thumb. Shilo's curriculum was not navigating her down any career path; Miss Sweet had made sure that the girl's schedule did not have more than a class or two in any field-not that the Wallace orphan wanted to have anything to do with the occupations that seemed to be before her.

There were all sorts of requirements to become a Gentern, and there was course scheduling to cover the prerequisites. Geneco security training required specific paper work and an interview/test process that none of the girls talked about-it became very obvious early on that those girls were the ones that seemed to teeter between killing themselves or their classmates, and were mostly avoided during free time.

SurGen training was blocked for her. So were any sort of scientific fields, much to her aggravation. When asked for a reason, her teachers would tell her 'Miss Sweet does not want to see you go down that path'.

How very sweet of her, thought Shilo, sarcasm causing her to bite her tongue and prevent herself from saying it aloud.

Her father had wanted her to be great, and the young girl considered it to be his dying wish; Shilo was simply waiting for her eighteenth birthday so that she could break out and finally make something of herself-what, she did not know just yet, but she was getting there. And she sure as hell knew that the finishing school was not helping her.

Her father had been very strict with her home schooling, and while there were no transcripts to show it, he had been giving her college-level lessons on most of her subjects before his passing. As a way to pass the time (as most of the class she was so graciously given permission to take were painfully boring), her most recent hobby had become trying to devise ways of breaking out of the school. She had gotten to be very good at it when she was younger.

Right now, as she continued to ignore the math lesson in the front of the classroom, Shilo glanced at the classroom's window frames and found them to be identical to the ones that were in her dormitory room-probably cheaper to outfit the place that way. She knew for a fact that they were attached to some sort of sensor that would set off an alarm if they were opened, since she had made that mistake on her first night there; she had been so used to a breeze from her open window when she slept that she had tried to pry open the thing, only to find security storming into her room. But these windows had actually been opened. The teacher that had done so had been very smart about the whole thing. Two pieces of broken ruler kept open the small catches that triggered the sensors. That way the windows could be lifted without setting them off. Hmm, she thought, and then promptly pocketed the ruler on her desk for later use.

"Trisha and I have been placed into the athletics program," remarked Glenda glumly when she found Shilo in the hallway, and behind her Trisha bit her lip. Glenda Thompson was a tiny girl with braids and incredibly large glasses; her parents did not have a great deal of money, and fear of Repo men kept them from spending the little they had on corrective eye surgery for her. Instead they had scraped and saved to send her to the school, so that she could have a promising career at Geneco. Trisha Nicols was a naturally pretty young woman destined, said the teachers, for a career as a Gentern. So helpful, so attentive. Shilo was observant that she was also quite obedient, and it was only a matter of time before the poor girl was called behind a closed door with one of the teachers-or worse, one of the Largo men. She had heard the stories, had been told to be aware by some of the older girls, and she had done her best to heed their warning.

"That's with Coach Vik-The stories I've heard about that man..." Trisha trailed off, allowing the other two girls to fill in the blanks. The girls were pessimistic and less than animated, and because of this were generally disliked by most of the student population. Shilo enjoyed their company because they made her feel a bit like she was normal, and reminded her not to be lulled into a false sense of security.

Part of her believed the school to be even more dangerous than the cemetery or the city streets. At least there she knew the dangers. People were likely to kill you if it meant scoring money to pay off their Geneco debt or to score their next hit of Zydrate from dealers like the Graverobber.

A teacher might ask you to stay for 'extra credit', or actually ask you about a paper. With the Graverobber things had been spelled out at the start. 'First hit's free'.

"Too bad you can't take the class with us, Shilo," said Trisha, who did not mean that at all. Shilo shrugged and hoisted her messenger back to sit higher on her shoulder.

"Sorry," she said in return, not meaning it, either. "I've gotta run all of my classes by the principal, who runs it by Amber Sweet, who usually says no."

The girls did not seem to take this excuse very well. Oh well. Four more months, she reminded herself. Four more months and she'd be gone. Now to work on that future beyond that.

"Do you guys ever wonder what's outside of the city?" she asked later on as they sat in the cafeteria, picking idly at the food in front of her. She was used to something a little more home cooked and less mass-produced. The other two girls looked up quickly, fixing her with matching incredulous looks.

"It's a wasteland. Everyone knows _that_. I mean, yeah, they _say_ there's some people who survived on the east coast, but nobody actually _knows_," Glenda said in a tone that she took on whenever she was lecturing the other two. "I would be perfectly happy to live my entire life without stepping foot outside of this city. I heard a rumor that they're even going to blockade the old roads."

"Why?" Shilo imagined the vast open spaces out there, or at least tried to. Stupid, she chastised herself, better to keep those sorts of things to yourself. She went back to picking at the brown substance they were claiming was meatloaf.

"Because they're afraid that the disease is out there!"

Shilo had the sudden image of some terribly large _thing_, black and hairy with multiple rows of teeth from the way Glenda had responded. Of course there was the chance of someone catching some sort of sickness while they were out there, but Shilo had made the decision to no longer allow fears of diseases to keep her from living her life. No more beeping machines or plastic barriers, thank you very much.

The day progressed, and Shilo anxiously waited for dinner to be over and the girls to be lead to the dormitories. Once the lights went out, she'd test the wooden ruler trick.

It worked.

Climbing down was easy because of balcony outside of her window, and the tree (landscaping was such an amazing luxury) beside it. She'd heard stories from her father about climbing trees. It seemed like it would probably be more entertaining if it was done during the day and not when she was currently trying to escape from her dormitory under the mask of night. Another time, perhaps.

Yeah right. They wouldn't let her open the window. That sort of thing was most definitely out of the realm of possibilities as well.

Once she was off of the school grounds, Shilo slowed her pace down, suddenly quite aware of how quiet and cold it was. After a few minutes of simply walking and listening to her heart thud wildly in her chest, she started to try to wander in the direction of the cemetery. Perhaps give her mother a nighttime visit.

Her father had once remarked that she was a morbid girl. Back then she had thought herself to be sickly, and had adopted the belief that her time on Earth was not very long-that the mausoleum would be housing her soon enough. It was part of the reason she had spent so much time within the crumbling stone and marble. Soon, she had thought, she would not eat sandwiches or read; there would still be her bugs, but that was it. Bugs and dark and quiet.

Some of those books on psychology had remarked that people tended to like environments that reminded them of the womb, and that different people had different triggers. Perhaps it was the quiet and closed-in space that had endeared her to the mausoleum.

"'My thoughts are with the Dead,'" she started to recite under her breath, skipping the beginning and comforting herself with a little Robert Southey. Nothing like those moldering old men and their insipid rhyme schemes to calm the soul.

She had gotten to '_My hopes are with the Dead; anon/ My place with them will be_' when she heard footsteps behind her. Icy fear coated her stomach, and she felt for the scalpel she had pilfered, fingers wrapping around the little instrument where it lay in her pocket.

"'_And I with them shall travel on/ Through all Futurity;/ Yet leaving here a name, I trust,/ That will not perish in the dust_.' Always thought there should be more to it, a solid ending like '_Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day/ I first surmised the Horses' Head/ Were toward Eternity –_'. So you're still around, I see."

Relieve washed over Shilo as she turned to face the Z peddler, who continued on, ignorant of her sudden and loud exhale.

* * *

"Southey just didn't have the same grasp of all of it like Dickinson. What the fuck are you doing out here, kid?"

Not that he cared, of course, but if the authorities were going to be flooding the area, at least he should know. She did not seem to respond well to his question.

"Just walking," she responded, continuing to do so. The Graverobber was much taller than her, and quickly made up the distance between them, walking alongside her with his hands in his pockets. "You like poetry?" He could see a glimmer of curiosity under a well-practiced air and tone of nonchalance.

He shrugged. That information was not for public disclosure, as far as he was concerned. "Your house got sold. Geneco employee and his wife moved in." She had legs that went on forever, he remembered fondly. He'd offer her alternative forms of payment if she ever came looking for Z.

This news seemed to upset the girl, who stopped. "They sold my house?" she asked, incredulously as she worried at her hair. When he nodded, she sighed and continued to walk. "I really hate her," she muttered under her breath.

One of his clients emerged from the shadows, and the girl noticed this, then looked at her watch, eyes widening as she did so. "Shit!" before looking up at the tall man. "Sorry, I gotta go!"

Why did she think she needed to apologize? Did she see tea and cookies anywhere? Graverobber snorted and pulled out his gun and a glowing glass vial. "Aint holding me up," he responded as she turned to sprint the opposite direction.

Graverobber went back to his usual business without giving the interaction must thought. Did it really matter what happened to the Wallace girl? People had stopped talking about it, once Amber Sweet had made the announcement and started parading around with a new pair of tits popping out of something that might have been a business suit it if was a bit looser and not made of leather. Good luck to the kid, because obviously she wasn't living in her old home, and she didn't have anything to do with Geneco.

That reminded him, he hadn't seen Miss Sweet in a while. Maybe she had given up the Z now that she was a CEO, or started to simply take from her company's reserves.

Part of the Graverobber knew this to be false.

"I realized something," started the kid when she materialized one evening, in lieu of a greeting. "These past few nights, I didn't end up in trouble."

"Kay," he grunted, going back to shooting up the jittery scalpel slut before him. It had become normal for him to find the girl wandering about in the area, and she would end up tailing him on his rounds. Currently the girl sat Indian-style on front step to a derelict building nearby, spreading her skirt over her knees for modesty's sake. Surrounded by women in barely any clothes and she worried about things like that? The drug dealer shook his head and continued dispensing to his customers, accepting money from shaking hands before giving them what they wanted.

"And in the past, every time I saw you, I knew it meant trouble."

"Still does," he said, removing from his collar the clawing hand of an addict in the throes of the chemical's pleasure. Shilo-yeah, he knew her name, but it bugged the fuck out of her when he called her 'kid'-sat up straighter and tucked a loose strand of her wig behind one of her ears.

"But it didn't happen. And you never answered my question from the other night. About-"

"Not gonna." Damn, the girl was insistent. And there was no way in hell he'd be admitting to..._that_ in front of his clients. A business man who looked nervous slipped Graverobber a crisp note of currency, and rolled up the sleeve of his pristine work shirt. Some of the prostitutes draped on fire exits and front steps near by perked up. The man looked like money to them. Graverobber pocketed his tools and continued, knowing that the man would be propositioned by at least five of the women they left behind them and that the girl would follow him down the street.

She didn't. Not right away. When he had gotten halfway down the street and hadn't heard the click of her shoes, he couldn't resist turning around to see why she hadn't pursued him.

"You coming or what?"

This seemed to satisfy the girl, who slipped off of her perch with a small grin and all of the awkward agility of a girl her age.

"Still didn't ans-Oh, fuck." Before he knew what was happening, Shilo was ducking into an alley and behind a garbage can. He looked around for what had alarmed her, only to find himself being sent into a nearby brick wall.

"Gimme my fix and make it quick," growled a voice near his ear. He knew very well that the beefy hand pressing at his back, keeping him in place, was not that of Amber Sweet. So she still had her henchmen.

"Amber, what a pleasant surprise. Thought you'd get all the Zydrate you want from Geneco."

A scowl contorted her flawless features "Their shit's not Street Zydrate. Now shut the fuck up and give me a hit."

Business transactions with Amber Sweet repulsed him, to be quite honest. Sure, the others where cheap and dirty, but this woman had the chance to be something great, and she wasted it on shit like this. As a sign of trust, he pressed the gun to her neck and released the trigger, allowing Amber to limply toss the money to him as she was dragged away. Bills from her always seemed a little greaser, and a lot less easy to pocket.

Shilo popped up from behind a garbage can after a healthy amount of time had passed. "Is she gone?" she hissed. When the Graverobber nodded and continued on, she trotted up to walk with him, still nervously looking over her shoulder from time to time. Had the girl gotten Geneco parts? What was her deal, seriously?

"In debt with Geneco?"

Shilo snorted. "Amber has made my education her priority. I'm at that school of hers-rather, that's where I'm supposed to be right now, asleep."

"That one that has the letters 'ASS' on their advertisements? I have to remember to say something about that next time she stops by."

"Before or after she has one of her goons smash your face into a brick wall?" she asked quickly, and by the look on her face, the repartee surprised her just as much as it surprised him. The kid had balls.

"On that note," the slight girl said suddenly, "I have to start heading back. Might actually get some sleep."

The bags under her eyes had gotten worse, and there a few times when he had caught her starting to nod off when she was sitting down. She had to wander through some really shitty places to get to his area, places that even he was weary of going to. "Stay in tomorrow night, kid." It came out without much thought.

Shilo gave him a small smile, and with a wave, disappeared back into the dark.

* * *

She was starting to pay less and less attention to class as the weeks went by. Her grades had started to drop, and they said she looked bored in class. Suddenly, she was self defense classes, and getting the shit beaten out of her by a gruff older man who came in just to train her. She knew from the way he held himself that he was a Repo Man. Shilo learned quickly, and this seemed to satisfy the man who refused to give her a name.

It was getting harder to exist in the two worlds. But each day was one less until her birthday, and she took comfort in that.

Then the rumors started.

"Amber's going to shut down the exit lanes out of the city; she'll be blockading us in," explained Shilo as she held a light in place for the man who was busy deterring a corpse. "And you _know_ what's gonna come next."

"Enlighten me, kid," he grunted, lugging the body to a spot where he could extract from it. Shilo huffed at the nickname but continued. "Mandated Geneco organ replacements, surgery...she'll own all of us, be able to track all of us...I'm leaving." The thought occurred to her suddenly. Even a death by those bears she had her stories about, that would be better than some sort of controlled, monitored life doled out by a woman who wouldn't know common sense if it came up and smacked her in the face.

"Okay, see you around." He waved over his shoulder, but Shilo shook her head, more for her own sake than his.

"No, as in 'leave the city'. That sort of leave."

The thief turned, still on his haunches, to fix her with an incredulous stare. "Please tell me this is exhaustion talkin'. Do you realize there's basically _nothing_ out there?"

Shilo busied herself with folding up the magazine she had brought with her. "Yeah. But there's rumors of settlements out there. And a city. But the woods might be safer. You know, the sort of stuff Margaret Atwood talked about; where it's a haven."

"That's her early stuff," muttered Graverobber, and Shilo could not help but let out a small noise of aggravation.

"See, you say things like that and don't explain. How do you know about all of this poetry and literature?"

He was finishing up, packing up his tools, so he shrugged and continued to work instead of look up and answer her. "Same way you came to know about it: I read."

She put her hands on her hips. "Obviously a lot. I couldn't go outside, and my dad tutored me relentlessly. _I_ have an excuse." When he did not respond to this, she settled back against the tombstone she sat in front of and studied the tip of her boot. "I am being serious though. I'm really considering leaving." Shilo stopped herself from asking her tall companion if he wanted to come along, because he'd only quip back with some sarcastic question like 'Do they have a demand for drug dealers for grizzlies?'

With a sigh she stood up and stretched, wincing at the pain that flared back to life in her muscles; the workouts were excruciating, but she was already seeing differences in her body at night when she stood before the mirror, nothing major, but small changes to her musculature. "Alright, Rob," she said, extinguishing the light and following him. "I'm headed back."

"Must you call me that, kid?"

She grinned. "Turnabout is fair play. What kind of a name is Graverobber?"

He held open the gate for her and ushered her out with an overly dramatic gesture. "It's a very apt one. What sort of a name is 'Shilo'?"

To be honest even she wasn't sure. Shilo yawned. "You have me there. Alright. See you around."

* * *

The Graverobber continued with business as usual, and as it was the holiday season, his sales went up. Nothing like a little Zydrate to keep in-law related stress at bay, or so he understood.

It had been days since he had seen the kid, and damn it, he was getting worried. The involuntary amount of concern he felt for the young woman was bothering him, because shit like this could be bad for his reputation.

The Drowned Duck was a seedy bar with clientele that adored him. Occasionally, he would stop in for a drink, do a little business, maybe find a girl for the night. He'd never bring them back with him, just find an alley and get it over with. The one time he had brought Shilo with him, he had felt guilty about all of it for the first time. The knowing looks some of the women had-they thought that he was taking Shilo with him afterwards.

He was sitting at the bar, considering that day, when the door swung open in came Shilo, her wig askew and a frantic look on her face. Behavior like this was normal-usually from someone about to be caught by a Repo man for a delinquency. In fact, some of the bar's patrons kept their eyes on the door, waiting for one to come in.

Graverobber hopped up from the door and hooked an arm around her waist, propelling her back out the door with him. The last thing he needed was someone saying they'd seen Shilo Wallace there-some people still remembered what had happened, and the rumor of her appearance in the Drowned Duck would stir up unneeded problems for the girl.

"What's got your panties in such a twist, kid?" he asked once they made their way to the alley beside the Drowned Duck. Upon closer inspection, the girl was covered in soot and she was out of breath.

"I may have, well..." she took a breath and tried to swallow, and overhead sirens started up. On a public service screen ('Brought to you by Geneco!') floating above, a photograph of Shilo was on the screen with a warning printed below her name. 'Arson' was in very large letters.

"-Burned down the school?"he said, finishing her sentence. She smelled of soot, and there was a scorch mark on her bag.

"Amber came, and she said something about scheduling me for surgery, and I, I hit her with a statue. I didn't mean to burn down the building, but she sent some guys after me, and I ended up in the lab, so-But no one got hurt, all of the kids were at home 'cuz it's a vacation. I didn't mean to, honest."

There were quick footsteps on the street, and he pulled the girl farther back into the alley. She was still breathing heavily as he decided to continue down the alley.

"Where are we going?" she managed.

"Someplace they won't look for you, I think," he answered, he stopped for a second and turned back to her. The screen was still visible above, and the image upon it was being replaced with other photographs of Shilo, all with the same black wig and school uniform. He pulled her wig off, despite her indignant screech. Beneath the wig was a head full of chocolate curls, quite fine and short. The change in her appearance, combined with his coat that he helped her into, was enough to cause anyone glancing quickly to not recognize her.

He only lived a short distance away from the bar, and he new the surrounding area well enough to travel through alleys to return to his apartment building. It was a seedy place, the sort where locking the door mattered so little that most people didn't. For once, however, he locked the door behind him as he ushered Shilo in.

The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, and a very pregnant cat mewed from its place behind a shabby chair set before a television set. The girl shivered, which reminded him to travel over to the rusty heater and kick it back into service.

As he tried to clear a spot for her to sit on the chair, he was aware of her looking about the place. She was shivering and holding his coat around her small frame, tightly.

"I'm gonna leave the city," she said quietly as he told her to sit down. "I think I can make it."

He found a clean rag and ran it under the tap before handing it to her. "Shilo, you're a seventeen year old girl who was never allowed out of the house until a few months ago. Forget surviving out there, do you really think you could cross the barricade?"

The girl went deadly still, fixing him a fierce look. "I can. I will. I'm fast enough and smart enough. I've been sneaking out of my father's house for years. A barricade should be nothing compared to my dad."

She had missed a spot on her face, and it was bothering him. The thief took the cloth from the girl and wiped at it, gently. She watched his actions with a detached look. "It's not that I don't believe in you, kid. But I also know a thing or two about those guards that you don't. They're not like your father, who was a great surgeon, and then trained to be fast and strong. These are people who were _made _faster and stronger than you and I. They've got Geneco bar codes on almost every inch of them. Hell, I bet their dicks do, too."

She had calmed down, and it was only a few scorch marks and the remaining smell of smoke that spoke of her earlier actions. "You're sweet, Rob. Really, you are, but I'm going to have to take my chances. I can't stay here, anymore-there's gotta be something better than this out there." She took the cloth from him and pushed out of the chair, forcing him to get out of her way if he did not want to block her. "I should get going before they do some sort of door-to-door search for me. Amber might have woken up by now." Shilo snorted but continued to fumble through her bag. "Can't even imagine what her face is going to look like. Well, before the surgeons fix her back up."

It was obvious that he was not going to be able to make her change her mind. Suddenly she wasn't that seventeen year-old girl that had looked up at him with fear in the cemetery, she was a woman with conviction, ready to run. He remembered her saying that there was a rumored city else where, another strong hold of people that had survived the plagues. Of course she'd go there. But people are people, no matter where they live, and knowing her, she'd find trouble.

"'This city will always pursue you'," he quoted for lack of something better to say and she laughed. The textbook was peeking out from beneath the chair, and Graverobber scooped it up, holding it out to her. Shilo looked up from slipping a black long sleeved shirt over her current clothing.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "A textbook?"

He nodded. "From a long time ago. Another life, I guess you could say. Take it." He stood and busied himself with picking at the clumps of lint on his pant legs. For some reason, giving her the book felt a bit like standing before the girl naked. Perhaps he should take it back before she notices all of his notes in the margins, he thought. To bolster his courage, he cracked a joke. "Who knows, maybe you can woo the grizzlies with the poetry."

He always remember her just as she was then: a brilliant smile at his words, eyes bright with determination, a long, white neck that was graceful. As though a transformation had taken place in his seedy apartment, a fiery woman stood before him now. "Aint gonna forget you, kid." He brushed at a curl that was sticking to her cheek.

Before he knew what she was doing, she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. It was a chaste kiss, a mere brush of lips upon lips, but it left him glued to the spot. She took a step back, looking a little scared. "Better not," she replied in a voice that wavered.

And then she was pivoting and leaving, and his doorway looked empty as he heard her feet clattering down the stairs.

Anxiety left a tight feeling in his chest as he went about business that night, a jitteriness in his limbs that he did not appreciate. Did she make it past the barricades? Suddenly his greatest fear was that he'd be doing his rounds of the cemeteries, turning over a new corpse, and there she'd be. Big dark eyes starting blankly up at him, so different from how she had looked up at him earlier.

A PSS floated by, a breaking news clip on repeat. Normally he ignored them, but thinking of the slip of a girl that had left his apartment, this one he paid attention to.

"Earlier this evening a fire broke out at the Amber Sweet School For Girls," the newscaster's voice announced with just the right amount of sadness to his voice. "Miss Sweet, who was visiting the school, was able to make it out but was injured in the process. Unfortunately, a student, seventeen year-old Shilo Wallace, was a victim of the fire. Our company would like to apologize for the earlier confusion over what had occurred."

It was a lie, obviously. But did it mean she had escaped, or had she been killed? He hoped she had reached that flat, tuneless landscape beyond the barricade, and that she was safe there.

* * *

Poems used:

Title taken from 'We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths' by Philip James Bailey, which is in turn taken from a quote of Aristotle's

'His Books' by Robert Southey

'I felt a Funeral, in my Brain' (280) by Emily Dickinson

'The City' by C. P. Cafavy, translated by Edmund Keeley

'flat, tuneless landscape' is a line from 'I Am Learning to Abandon the World' by Linda Pastan


	2. Little Kindnesses

_Three Years Later_

You think a guy would realize that you kind of wanted to get paid after you broke his nose. Must have gotten some pretty faulty parts from Geneco.

The long haired thief dropped to a crouch before the business man who lay in foetal position, sobbing quietly as blood-common blood- ran down his face and on to the bathroom's grimy tiles.

"Now I aint a Repo Man; there's no 90 day delinquency policy with my goods. Pay up."

Below him, the once well-ironed shirt was now incredibly wrinkled and covered in dirt. This guy was an occasional customer–not hooked, just needed it to help with the edge sometimes. The guy had run last time, and Graverobber's usual crowd had gathered, preventing him from pursuing.

"I'm sorry," sobbed the man. "Please, I can pay you back over time. I just-I don't have the money. They pulled my name!"

Seriously? That excuse was getting old. If his clients couldn't pay-and a lot of them couldn't-then they should start considering the Graverobber's convenient alternative payment plans: do him a favor and he'd do you one.

Geneco's mandated surgeries had been going on for what, two, three years? That bitch had announced it right after she graciously took over for the Mayor, who had thrown himself out a closed window fifteen floors up. How nice of her.

So the guy's name was pulled. The Repo Men would call upon him, and if he didn't have a bar code somewhere on him denoting the presence of some Geneco part in him, they'd grab him and take to Surgi-Camp. Have the money? You'd be in and out in a day. None? Consider yourself a Surgi-Camp resident. Want a little Z before the surgery? Extra money. Graverobber guessed that Amber Sweet had realized keeping the people around meant she could rob them of everything.

"I-I heard you don't have a bar code yourself," the man mumbled. "I think I know someone that could help you. He could set you up."

Graverobber's lip curled into a grimace. "Do I look like I'm a scalpel slut? Gimme a break."

"That's-that's what I mean. I just want the Z, I'm no slut-my wife would _kill_ me. And I've heard you won't either. This guy he-"

"Do you really think the bathroom is the place for this conversation?" The drug dealer grabbed the man by his once-pristine collar and hauled him to his feet. He all but dragged him out of the Drowned Duck and into the side alley.

Of course he had heard the rumors; who hadn't? The very idea that someone was out there, somehow hacking into Geneco's computer database and adding their own bar code numbers, was crazy. Add to that the fact that they were then tattooing these numbers on people to keep them from having to go for surgery, and you've got yourself a bunch of people basically committing very complicated suicide.

So, yes, he had been keeping his ear to the ground, trying to feel out whoever those dumbasses were, because for a few credits he'd probably get a code if it kept him from getting hauled in. He was still a convict, still wanted for the illegal dealing of street Z; the Repos were probably salivating over the idea of nabbing him. So how did this guy get a hold of one of them first?

Now in the alley, the guy's breath was coming out in puffs, visible in the winter air. 'Gritty and fetid'. What poem was that from again? He was starting to forget. It was a shame he had ever given that book away. Gut reactions like that, those little kindnesses-he had never had them before and had certainly not had them since.

Graverobber allowed his client to wipe the blood from his nose before he slammed him against a wall. Nicely, of course.

"Go on."

"Um, well, he owes me a favor or two, so I think he could set you up. He charges a couple hundred creds for the whole thing, and it's pretty clean."

"How exactly do you know him?" No fucking way he was walking into some situation where he was going to get his ass arrested. If the stupid fuck openly propositioned his client, then the Graverobber was not going to go along with this.

"Well I sell him some Z," at this the guy visibly gulped. No doubt he was doubling the price-now the thief knew full well that he could afford the Z. Served him right for all but running a fucking Z charity. "But only from time to time. He's young, and kinda scared."

"So why is he in the dirty code business?"

The man shrugged, and the back of his shirt was now even dirtier. "Dunno. He's mentioned that the group-the Resistance-they've got his back, apparently. Says that they've got him covered. Graverobber, he's the real deal. I know people that have gotten codes from him, gotten pulled, and been sent on their way. They're legit, I swear."

At some point in his career, he'd become very good at reading people. It was a necessary skill, he surmised. Figuring out who'd snitch and who'd bale was important. "Take me to him."

The business man looked relived. "So my debts are cleared?" he asked hopefully.

"Once this all checks out, yeah, you won't owe me a thing." Because he'd already lifted the sad fuck's wallet on the way out of the bathroom.

***

A slight figure was perched on the end of a bed, deeply involved in whatever book it was that she was reading. A leg was drawn up, and she was resting her chin upon her knee.

There was a peculiar coloring to her, a golden sort of tint that was strange to see in a city so polluted and blocked from the sun that powder white skin was what seemed normal. The coloring of her skin had come as a delightful surprise to the woman known as "Medi", who muttered something about 'melanin' upon first seeing her. Of course, since reentering the city, the girl had needed to cover her limbs. Skin that strange color of old paper would be too much of an oddity, too easy to notice.

She missed the sun. If someone were to ask her, that would be the first thing she would say. Then the breeze, and the sound that it made when it whipped through the trees. And this time of year? She missed the wide, white expanses of the cabin's property, blanketed in snow.

Someone was climbing the rickety stairs outside her bedroom, the old wood audibly protesting weight upon them. She tucked a slip of paper into the book and placed it back on her bedside, already standing when her door opened.

"Christ, you've got good hearing." Brian wiped at his nose. He didn't do very well in the cold, the poor guy. Even a few minutes outside would leave him teary-eyed, red-nosed, and dripping. "Just had a meeting, but I came to see if you take a walk with me. I'm headed to the shop."

"Fred's got a shit load of work for me, to be honest. And he wants to spar with me before I leave tonight on the raid. Sorry."

He was a sweet boy. But a boy, nonetheless. And she didn't have time for boys or things like that. There was a time she figured she'd end up showing him a good time one night and then moving on, but he was the sort of guy who'd continue to make cow eyes at her afterward, forever sulking. Not needed. Not wanted. Not going to happen. They could be friends, she had told him, though he had not been happy about it.

"Oh," Brian said, and ducked his head for a second. "Right. Well, I've got to get back to the shop. Business, ya know..." And off he went, tripping back down the stairs.

Ana slipped on her shoes and went to find the cleaning supplies-there were eight other people that lived in the old house, and bathrooms did not clean themselves.

There would be a supply run later, and if Fred said she was on it, well her ass would be there. She owed that guy everything. Three years ago, she would have died if that giant hulk of a man hadn't saved her. 'Anastasia', he had called her. It meant 'resurrection'.

Ana leaned over to reach into a low cabinet for a bucket and the cleaning supplies in it. As she did so, a charm on a long chain slipped out from its place tucked into her tank. It was a small, black and white cameo. When she was younger, in another life, she had worn it on a black ribbon around her neck.

After noting, she tucked it back under her shirt, and armed with cleaning supplies, went about her job.

***

Inside the vault, the large portrait of the Wallace family swung back in on itself, and from behind it a slight man appeared. He bore a great resemblance to the man in the portrait now behind him, but only as far as bone structure and general facial characteristics went. The man in the portrait seemed to have a sense of pleasantness to him, a sense of intelligence and kindness that usually meant a career in the medical field. This was not the case for the man now in the mausoleum.

His face was a great deal more aged than it needed to be. It was hard to tell his age; his face seemed that of an old man who had lived a harsh life, but there was a sharpness to his movements, a predatory gleam in his eyes.

Nathan Wallace had changed a great deal since his brush with death. Geneco had taken everything from him, but they had also saved his life. Because of this, he had continued to work for them. History had a way of repeating itself, he thought from time to time bitterly to himself.

But he was no longer simply a Repo Man-he was the head of the entire training program for the Geneco Security Team. By combining the Repo Men with the Largo family security detail, Nathan and Amber Sweet had bred a fear-inducing team that could be dispatched for a myriad of reasons. They were efficient killers, and they were very good at what they did. This was mostly due to the cold-blooded, ruthless leader of their group.

It was only the Largo family who knew his real identity. Most of the time he was only referred to as 'Sir' by the trainees and guards alike; the idea of not respecting him was out of the question. There were rumors that he occasionally gutted a trainee for not responding to his questions promptly, and that he drank the blood of his victims. Only one of them was true.

He kneeled to place flowers at the grave of his wife and his daughter, and looked up at the portrait of the three of them above. If only they had been reunited in death. Instead he was forced to live each day, a sort of torture that was too extreme even for his standards.

Amber Sweet had been good employer thus far, though she was still a slut in every way possible. The few times he had fucked her had left him feeling tainted in a great many ways. But his boss got what she wanted, regardless of cost.

He recalled the most recent time, how, with a silk sheet wrapped around her, she had sprawled out next to him in the bed, smoking a cigarette with cool indifference. The sheets were marked with drops of red; she had dragged her nails down his back with a fierce vengeance, and she had just come from surgery.

"I never told you who set that fire, did I?" she asked casually, blowing smoke out to watch idly as it spread above the bed in a gradually thinning cloud. "Some of those fucking rebels, can you believe it?"

Nathan did not answer, but the information continued to stay with him from that day on. He continued to oversea the Repo Man training, more vicious and heartless than ever.

Those Resistance members had taken the last thing that had made him human, and someday he would let whoever was responsible for his loss see the monster that they had made. And he was make them suffer.

* * *

Notes:

2084 Words

"The Bad Old Days" by Kenneth Rexroth

More poetry in later chapters, I promise!


	3. Hushed Up and Hidden

**Title: We Live in Deeds  
****Author: strangelittleswirl**  
**Fandom: ** Repo! the Genetic Opera**  
Pairing: **Graverobber/Shilo (eventually)**  
Rating:** **M  
Word Count: 6,722****  
Summary: **'Her name was Shilo Wallace once.' The aftermath of Opera, and the beginning of a new chapter in the city's history. **  
Warning: **Language, violence, and inferences to mature themes.**  
Disclaimer: ** I own nothing. I'm merely playing in the genius world created by DLB, DS, and TZ . I do not have any claims to the poetry used either.

* * *

Sparring with Fred was a bit like ripping off a bandage; you were going to have to do it eventually, and it was going to be painful, so you might as well grit your teeth and get it over with.

Ana was very good friends with the workout mats in the old gym. She was a close confidant of those found in the dockside warehouse. But hell, she was all but a fuck buddy of those found in their basement. Want to know what they smell like? Rubber and sweat-male sweat. What they feel like? Absolute shit. And for so many reasons.

Thus far, she had not greeted them yet in the sparring session. With her tongue, she toyed around with the slick smoothness of the mouth guard, still finding it a novelty. Fred had explained that now that she knew what it felt like to loose a tooth or two out in the real world, she might as well keep the rest when she was sparring. Three years ago he had knocked the first of her baby teeth out about five minutes into their first session together.

"Stop fucking with that mouth guard," he snapped from the other corner of the mat. "You let it distract you enough, and you'll still end up losing teeth." Even under the single bare lightbulb that illuminated the area, he had seen it. Old man had good eye sight.

Twenty five minutes later, and she still had not kissed the mat. This fact delighted the girl, who was weaving and darting as she usually did, her brunette ponytail a flag behind her that would mimic the movement of her body after a second's delay. She was still getting used to the feel of the ponytail hitting her neck, and as always she was thankful for the lack of an itchy wig. Between the ponytail and the mouth guard-

'Alas, Madame, for stealing of a kiss'.The punch seemed to come out of nowhere, and then she was falling, trying to brace herself, but when her face was smashed against it her lips still touched the mat anyway. Only her hands spread wide upon the surface of the mat allowed her to distribute her weight enough to keep from breaking her nose. Not that broken bones would be brand-new.

"For a tiny little thing you go down like a sack of bricks" said a voice over her. Ana pushed off the mat and fixed him with a weary glare. He had been using that line since they had first met, back at that horrible school.

But now she knew about his bum knee, and used this to her advantage, whipping out with a leg and kicking just so behind the weak limb. There was a loud thud as he landed next to her. Even through a grunt of pain, he was laughing, the crazy fuck. Ana helped him back up and then assisted with rolling up the mats, the pair working in silence. Space was precious, so the area would be used as a classroom, a meeting room, and a bedroom before the day was done.

The house was large; it had been quite impressive at _some _point, Ana surmised. But now it had some sort of perpetual layer of patina that all the scrubbing in the world would not remove. There were times when she imagined that the house had once tried very hard to be attractive, but had failed miserably at it and had sunk into despair, allowing its roof to sag and the stairs inside to bow like shoulders.

It had been almost a year since a handful of them had smuggled themselves back into the city. Fred had been in contact with people still in the city, just starting to set the beginnings of the Resistance up. Over the years there had been small groups here and there trying to rebel against Geneco and the city's strict ordinances, but it wasn't until Fred, the former Repo Man himself, that they had any sort of leadership. Fred _had_ been the head of the Repo Training department, before he had cut and run. Like the rest of the group, she owed the man everything.

"So you'll be coming with us on the supply run tonight?" he asked, knowing the answer already. Ana nodded and took a sip from her water bottle.

"Of course, sir." Short and to the point, that's how he liked her answers. For the most part, she found herself generally being silent around him. There was no need for questioning him-like Mischa, she was meant to predominantly shadow the older man, and to assist him. One of these days Frederick would announce who would take over for him, and it was going to get awkward between Misch and Ana. Or maybe he was just biding his time, knowing that there was a real possibility that only one of the two youths would outlive him. But to her, Fred had a face that seemed to have been carved from rock; he was very much immortal to Ana. The idea of his death was something that did not seem fathomable.

But Mischa was gunning for the leadership position, and the role was not one that Ana really wanted. The two of them were handpicked, selected for reasons only known to Fred, and their opinion had never really been asked.

She climbed the steep steps to the first floor of the home, only to find Mischa and a few of his friends pawing through the cupboards of the kitchen. She rolled her eyes and snorted, causing the bulky, dark-complected young man to turn around.

"Where is the food, Ana?"

"Your stomach," she replied, tartly. "Fred asked Medi to pick up some on the way back after her shift, but you could always go out and be helpful for once." Fred's potential successors got along rather well, except for the part where they were tearing at each other's throat on a constant basis. Mischa was perpetually vying for the position, and Ana loved to piss him off.

"Can't," said one of boys in the back who was clutching at a cereal box, the one Ana could never remember the name for. His ears stuck out, and he chewed a bit more before continuing. "Mischa overheard Fred say there was a raid tonight."

"I knew already, actually," she said breezily and continued out of the room. "Sorry, Misch-Misch."

"Don't even think about responding, Mischa," growled their mentor from the doorway, waving a gnarled finger in the youth's direction. "Ana's in a bitchy mood and I can't afford to have either one of you breaking bones during your next sparring set together. Ana, stop simpering and go prep for tonight."

Now where was the fun in that?

She continued on her way back to the guns, the knives, and the scalpel that would find their ways into pockets and holsters upon her clothes for the night. Without anything else to do for the time being, she decided to take apart her handgun and clean the parts.

* * *

This had to be, by far, the worst part of town that the Graverobber had ever stepped foot in, which was really saying something. Sure he could take care of himself, but the man was not stupid, he knew where not to go.

"Password?" asked a voice that _had_ to sound younger than it really was. Cracking and thin like that? There was no fucking way that the businessman's connection was-

"_Illegitimis nil carborundum_." The man butchered the phrase, but oh well.

Well shit, it _was _a teenager. A freckled, red-haired, and gaunt boy with a bleary nose popped his head through the crack of the open door, swept the area with a quick glace, and looked nervously behind the businessman at Graverobber.

"He's with me, he's cool." The word did not sound right coming from his customer, but he brushed aside as they were ushered in. From somewhere in the backroom of the dingy one-story building, Graverobber could hear the buzz he remembered from old tattoo shops. These days people simply purchased a skin graph with the image already on it.

"Um, I'm Brian, by the way," said the youth, who then turned and showed them into a small side room. It was a dark room, with curtains blocking out the light. There were unwashed plates about the place and a lingering mildew smell. It looked a bit like the thief's place.

Brian seated himself at a computer and swiped his hand over the touch pad, causing the moaning woman with globe-like breasts jiggling while in the throws of pleasure to fade off of the screen. The kid cleared his throat with embarrassment.

"Guys must have been-I mean, that's pretty unrealistic...from what I've heard," he muttered, tapping desperately at the touch pad. Finally, the screen cleared and he folded his hands on the desk facing the two men in a sort of business-like manner. "So how can I help you gentlemen?"

"Remember that favor?" asked Graverobber's client. "Been supplying you for a while, and well, I mean, I should have called the Repo Men on your ass, and I didn't-"

"And my uh, my ass and I have thanked you very much for that," interjected the kid.

"-Well I was hoping I could call on that favor now. Could you set my friend here up?"

Brian looked over at the Zydrate peddler. "You don't have one yet, man?"

"Schedule's been too full," he responded, tersely. "How long is this going to take?" While he'd noticed a lot of thug-like men assembled around the house during their quick walk-through, he didn't like being in the place.

The kid pushed his chair back, and swivelled to face the computer. "Like twenty minutes once I enter the code, no problem. I just need your name so I can link this up in their database."

He said he'd rather enter it himself. The kid eyeballed him curiously for a second, but when he realized that the newcomer was not backing down, he threw his hands up in a defensive manner. "Sure, man. That's fine."

The red-haired boy bobbed and wove his way into Geneco's system with surprising efficiency. Soon enough, a new window had popped up, allowing the boy to generate a new bar code.

"Got a preference for location?"

"Chest." It would be easy to access for a scan. And the quicker that happened, the higher his chance was of getting out of a Repo Man scan alive.

"Congrats, Graverobber, you have a new heart-like _new_ new. The ones they just revealed a month ago. Now just gotta skip over to this section and pop all the info in. Alright," he pushed his chair away from the desk and tilted the screen so that Graverobber, who had crossed to the other side of the desk, could securely enter his information. He'd tried to keep this sort of information to himself; for that past almost thirty years it had been working.

"That goes into the system and even I can't go back in and find it. Now just take this number to the back, ask Seamus to hook you up, and you should be good, man."

A short while later, chest slightly throbbing from the newly acquired tattoo, Graverobber snuck out a back entrance and started his journey back to his own territory.

* * *

"On the raid tonight?" queried Pierre looking up from his conversation with Medi as Ana came down the stairs, zipping her jumpsuit up. She nodded and took a slice of toast from the older woman, who fixed her with a frown.

"Not right for a girl your age," she said with distaste. Her husband gave his wife a long-suffering glance, which she obviously caught.

"We all are, Medi, baby." Pierre pointed to the words painted over the kitchen table, painted up there in Fred's loping cursive-'_Lucter et emergo_'-before continuing. "Now Ana ain't your baby and she probably don't want to be. You smother that kid Brian enough." Ana considered taking her plate of food out of the room; the couple were touching on deeper subjects, and she did not need to be present for it.

It was times like this that left Ana wondering how the sensitive medic and the obtuse gunsmith had remained married for so long. A look of hurt flashed through Medi's eyes, and Ana immediately thought of Hemingway and baby shoes, and then the memory of greasy-slick blood and shrill panic. That had been the only time she had ever seen Medi seem powerless. 'I always lose them', she had whispered after they had cleaned the room and gotten rid of the girl's and the baby's bodies. 'Mine and everyone else's.'

Ana slipped out of the room. Fred was her mentor, yes, but Medi and Pierre were pretty close to parents, somewhat. They fought as loudly as they fucked, and the middle-aged couple adored one another. They were like gears of a clock, working separately at their own functions, but joining together to create a whole. Magnets that could be separated for periods of time, but always finding their way back together. And they both looked out for Ana with fierce affection.

She finished eating on the basement stairs, watching the class now being taught in the same area she had been training in earlier. The Resistance members' few children were being instructed by the former educators, given fairly thorough lessons.

Soon enough she had to return her dirty plate to the kitchen, finding it now abandoned. A quick look at her wrist watch informed her she still had a short amount of time before the kitchen meet-up. She returned to her poetry book.

The beaten up book was all that tied her to her old life, that and the paper she had found tucked into the back-a signed, legal copy of Rotti Largo's will. She didn't think he'd meant to give it to her; he'd probably tucked it in there without thinking, since it seemed a place that wouldn't be bothered. While Rotti had said there would be stipulations, he had already signed over Geneco. It was hers.

When she had been younger, reluctantly scrubbing a bathroom, or climbing a cliff face (before she had realized how fantastic the activity could be), or picking herself up off the mat for the hundredth time, she had fantasized about a different life. Where she sat behind that Largo desk and had run that company. She had made the Largos pay for all her pain and hurt. The vengeance had taken on different forms at different times.

But she now realized she had to bide her time. Amber no longer went out in public without guards, and since the woman had taken over Geneco, Amber was now her adversary in that regard. With her own slew of legal assistants at her beck and call, Amber could justify her command and Ana's consequential murder with very little effort.

In time, she'd face that woman. For now, her greatest strength was her apparent death. Anastasia had risen from the ashes of Shilo Wallace, and for now Ana waited for the Resistance to grow in strength and number. Shilo Wallace would reappear, as if by magic, at just the right moment.

She flipped open the ratty textbook and started to read. _I know him, that man_/ _walking- toward me up the crowded street_...

* * *

Once upon a time, two young men had a genius idea, a way to save those who were dying around them. Their small, upstart cloning business-it was mostly old women who wanted cats and dogs cloned-could be the location of a great change in their dying society.

Rotti had the business brains, and his friend Malcolm had a great grasp of the scientific parts of it. Together they set the plans in motion to make Geneco a household name. Malcolm would work in the labs and out of the spotlight, and Rotti would create the image. The money slowly started to pour in, and success was theirs.

For a time.

Rotti _thirsted_, needed for many things-sex, money, power, blood. He started to press for repossession legislation as Malcolm begged him to reconsider.

"We've got the money, we don't need to go that far," he said, looking up from his work with a young surgeon, Nathan Wallace. "Can we discuss this later?"

They never did, because the poison that Rotti had been slipping into Malcolm's coffee had finally kicked in, and he was quickly bedridden, forced to retire. Legislation passed quickly after that.

Rotti still thirsted. If anything, knowing how blissfully simple it had been to get rid of his partner made Largo want to do _more_. Marni had left him a year before, and had become ill. Largo's daughter had sat with her father as he had assigned the order for Marni's death, had sat in the corner when he had handed over the vial of poison.

You could say the desire for control, power, and blood, well, it ran in the blood.

Amber was currently reclining against the headboard when Nathan slid quickly out of the bed and crossed to the pile of clothes upon the floor to start to search through them. Behind lowered eyelids, Amber feigned disinterest and sighed.

"Here," he said, throwing a small piece of black plastic onto the comforter. She picked it up and placed it in her palm, where it fit easily. "It's a remote wave disrupter."

She sighed again, giving him a look of disgust. "Jesus, Nathan, _English_. It looks like an old car remote. What the fuck does it do?"

"Remember those new hearts?"

"Yes," she answered defensively. Meaning that she did not. Bitch was so far gone on a week-long Z trip she had been bathed like a baby by attendants.

"They were recycled old ones. We rewired the hearts, got 'em to start again. Imbedded a regulator box and marketed them."

"That's not a heart in your hand."

The assassin tamped down the desire to gut her, and instead continued. "This is set to the same wavelength that the cardiac regulators work on. One press of this button and anyone with a Geneco heart flat lines."

She looked up at him, and back down at the piece of plastic in her hand, a slow smile passing across her features. "_You've_ got one of those hearts," she said before pressing the button.

Nothing happened. Nathan took the piece of plastic from her and threw it across the room. He pushed her back down onto the bed. "Do you really think I would trust you with a real one? You're a dumber bitch than I thought, Amber."

He woke up a short while later spent and sprawled across the bed, with a handful of Amber's hair in his hands from where he had pulled it out, and three deep scratch mark across his chest.

* * *

The raid was on a supply building close to Sanitarium Square, a distribution center located close enough to the Surgicamps to be able to be used by several of them. Because of its high turnover rate (interning Repo Men were sent there) it had become a bit of a joke, breaking in there. Ana checked the that her thin black mask was in place, and turned to the newbie next to her, looking her over. She seemed to be level-headed enough, to have trained enough.

"Supply run virgin, huh? Poppin' the cherry?" cracked Pierre, clapping the new girl on the shoulder. The teenager, despite her sturdy build, stumbled a bit-Pierre was a boulder of a man. She gave him a nervous smile.

"Stop scaring the noob, Pierre. I'll snitch to Medi when we get back," taunted Ana. "Fred's talking in my comm and I can't hear for shit."

Finally making sense of the crackle, Ana related the directions to Pierre, and the two led the small group through the last few yards of tunnels. Brian notified them that he'd temporarily dropped the motion detectors for the manhole, and they scurried up, Pierre keeping track of their short time.

The manhole lead to a small area behind a shed on the building's grounds, just on the inside of the fence. The group reassembled, and they started to discreetly make their way to the building.

It was like those old cliched movies; a pair of Repo Men were standing and commiserating a short distance away, and from beneath their helmets their breath floated out in clouds in the cold air. These dragons weren't as dangerous as some of the ones they had faced in the past.

Ana plucked at the new girl's sleeve, giving her a momentary grin before gesturing for her to follow.

Ricky, a ferret-like man in his late twenties, scurried him way up the building and in through a large broken window; this was his job, it was always his job. Less than a minute later, the group was let into the deathly silent supply building.

Pierre trotted over to the refrigerated section, grabbing perishables and plasma. It was difficult in the dark for some of the less experienced ones, but Ana gestured to show them where to go, and she followed Pierre to the blood storage section. They ended up back to back, squatting and passing over cold shelves with dim flashlights.

"You wouldn't really rat on me, would you?" Although Pierre was one of the most self-assured people Ana knew, he had a tendency to speak in questions.

"Of course not," she whispered, grabbing as much Common and O pos as possible, then going back and stuffing a few of the rarer blood packs into her sack. "I just like busting your balls. Especially right before it's your turn to cook dinner because-"

She never finished her sentence, because there was a clattering noise a short distance away, followed by a long string of swearing. Female voice. Young. Shaking. Ana could all but smell the fear from where she crouched. "Shit," she said, herself.

"Aww, fuck. Come on, girly, let's go!" There was the sound of heavy boots headed in their direction, echoing off of the tall storage shelves that rose towards the airplane hanger-like ceiling. The old power conservation programs did not allow the floodlights above them to turn on immediately, and the pair took advantage of the darkness to scramble for an exit.

The door they had entered through was now locked, but they already knew that. They sprinted for the stairs to the catwalk. There was a clatter on the stairs behind them, and Ana risked one quick glance behind her to see that it was the new girl, and Ricky.

The lights directly above them now, those large, cup-shaped halogens of old, started to flicker to life. Pierre inhaled sharply at the same time, out from the shadows, a Repo Man appeared. No guns, not in this building with its constant gas leaks. Just a taser that he had no time to reach for as the petite brunette ducked his outreaching arm and slammed an elbow into his windpipe. She kept going, knowing that Pierre was already dropping the man over the side of the catwalk.

The lights were fully on now, blinding everyone. A scalpel flashed in her face, and she felt it catch at the material of her jumpsuit, just scraping her skin as she jumped out of the way. A kick to his side, and he went tumbling down on top of a trainee coming up the stairs. Ana was thankful that none of these Repo Men could throw scalpels like Fred.

Her feet slapped against the metal grating as she sprinted towards the end, where the open window was situated.

Repelling down the side was a hurried and frantic affair. The second her feet touched the ground she was up and running, darting past a guard, breaking another's nose, and continuing through the open gate. The pack slapped against her back rhythmically as her feet sped her towards Sanitarium Square, and the copse of trees that would be her shelter for the time being.

"Brian," she gasped, knowing the comm would pick it up as she darted down back streets and avoided late-night denizens. "You better get that thing open!"

And even as she ran for her life, Ana felt alive. Instead of Fred's scolding voice above, Pierre was laughing somewhere behind her. Electric and free, like the cliffs again.

* * *

Sanitarium Square was an easy place to make a buck, but it was also an easy place to end up with a bullet between your eyes. Graverobber stuck to the edge of the artificial trees and watched the usual people mill by. Aside from Opera Week, the park was one of the few places with some sort of foliage in it for the rest of the year. He ran through his mental list of clients, and sought them out amongst the couples on park benches and against street lights-some owed him money. A lot of them owed him money. This time of hushed up and hidden things was when he could get that money.

He leaned against a tree, out of sight to anyone passing by, to start counting up the money for the night. It was a decent amount, not his greatest work, but it would do to pay for the rent and food, with a little left over.

The pissed, shitfaced, and brain-dead all stirred to life when a siren grew into a harsh scream a short distance away. On his part, he straightened up, senses on high alert for the Repo Man with a gun. These new ones, they lacked finesse, but they made up for it with brute strength and sheer maliciousness. Just last week he saw them gut a scalpel slut for the hell of it.

Into the park, hurdling at a speed that seemed almost inhuman, was a person clad entirely in black, their back misshapen. Down the street, he could just make out another figure as well. The person darted around a couple who had stopped to watch the spectacle, and then leapt over a bench like it was nothing. As they landed on the other side, he could just make out a bit of hair bobbing behind them, like a fox tail. After a second he realized that the runner had the same idea he had-the section of trees where he stood was shadowed and an ideal hiding place. This was not good. Not good at all.

The masked person now noticed Graverobber in their intended hiding place, and something silver in their hand winked. He held up his Zydrate gun. "Hey, on your side," he hissed.

The person slipped past him, moving further into the trees and away from the path. "Guess we're both going to benefit for this," they muttered, and he knew then that the short figure was female. She lifted her communicator and whispered into it. "Hey, can you scramble the park?" She must have had an earpiece in, because he didn't hear a response. Expensive stuff, perhaps he'd be able to swipe it. "You're the best."

An impressively large man was running through the park, and just behind him a Repo Man was taking aim with a rifle. Perhaps he'd be able to pick-pocket the corpse, once they were finished taking the parts. The assassin pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

A handful of other Repo Men were now in the Square, and starting perplexedly at their own weapons.

"Oh, man, I love that kid," chuckled the bulky man before he promptly punched the nearest guard, knocking him out from the force of it.

Then a Repo Man was behind him in the brush. When the fuck did he ask to be apart of this?

Nearby there was the noise of a grunt, and a then a yell followed by a quick noise of a body falling. The Graverobber couldn't look up, as he was too busy dodging a guard who tried to butt him with the his rifle now that it was useless. The thief grabbed the weapon and pulled it past himself, using the other man's own weight against himself. He all but walked into the punch. To be on the safe side, he jabbed a needle into the guards neck. The chamber had only a small amount of Z int it, but it was enough to incapacitate the Repo Man.

He could just make out another Repo Man laying on the ground, and the girl as she crawled out of the bushes. It was silent in the park.

"Rides gonna be hear soo-" the girl never finished her sentence, because a Repo Man had woken up just behind her, and had found his taser on his tool belt. She fell to the ground, convulsing. Bulky McBigArms ran over and kicked the taser out of the guards hands before kicking the Repo Man savagely in the side. With a gloved hand, he yanked the small electrodes from the girl's back before removing the gloves to feel at her neck.

"She's got a pulse!"

There was the noise of screeching tires, and a van pulled up at the exit to the park. A few other black-clad figures were coming out from the shadows and making their way to the van. A man got out of the vehicle, rushing the group along. He looked at the girl on the ground for a moment, then picked her up with a sigh. On the way back to their escape, this older man whispered to Hefty.

"You can come with us willingly, or we can drag your corpse out; which is it going to be?" It took a moment for Graverobber to realize he was being addressed. Well, shit. As silently as possible, he started to crawl backwards. There was a dumpster near the back, and after he crawled on top of it, he could easily just get over the wall.

But that wasn't going to happen, since another one of the group's members had crept up behind him and had a gun to the back of his head.

"And before you decide to get cocky, realize that our scrambler? It stopped about a minute ago, so that gun to the back of your skull? It can easily cause your brains to be splattered all over this fucking place. You coming?"

He brought his hands up slowly, feeling the cool metal continue to be pressed into his hair. "Well, there wasn't anything on TV tonight, anyway."

"Put the blindfold on."

After that, it was a blur of smell and jostling movement as he was placed into the car. He couldn't remember the last time he was in one of them, must have been when he was a kid. It smelled like shit and sweat, must have been an old clunker that they pieced back together.

They parked and dragged him out, clamping handcuffs around his wrists, keeping them behind his back. "I usually don't do this thing until after dinner on the date," he muttered, hearing his voice and scuffed steps echo off of the walls and the roof above him. The air was moist and cool.

They walked a short distance before he's pushed into a room, and then a chair. There was commotion outside the doorway.

"Woah, woah, woah!" comes a voice he recognizes. "Dude, what the fuck are you doing?"

"This guy was in the woods at the Square," replied a grizzled voice. "We're going to try to figure out what to do with him."

"Fred, this is why I said I should go on the raid, and not her. I'd have gutted him there."

"He got a tat this morning, man," continued the person who recognized him. It was that guy, Brian, from earlier. He never thought he'd be so relieved to hear that pubescent voice, but he certainly was. "He's a Z supplier, best there is."

"Think Medi can talk to him? She's been trying to test something," said the other voice, the one that had threatened him in the park.

A silence. The older man was considering. "It's Graverobber, right? Yeah. Fuck, of course. Let's go get him cleaned up."

Their was the smell of cigarettes as a body entered and stood before him. The blindfold was removed, and a gray-haired man with a weather-worn face stared down at him from his perch on the edge of a desk.

"You've been skirting the Repo Men for a while now," he said.

"About a decade." Christ, that was a long time, now that he thought about it. With his arms behind his back, he had lost feeling in the limbs. He tried to wiggle his fingers to try to get the blood flowing again.

"Obviously you know about the Resistance, so here's the deal," said the man, who extracted a cigarette from his breast pocket and a lighter from his trousers, making efficient work of lighting the cigarette. "You supply us Z, which we will pay you for, keep your mouth shut, and we won't blow your head off."

"Fair enough. I like my head intact on my shoulders."

He exhaled, a ring of smoke escaping from between his lips. "I'm being perfectly serious. You say a word about us to anyone, and Luigi Largo's idea of torture will seem like a trip to Geneco Opera compared to what we will put you through."

"Got it."

The old man studied him for a moment, then stood and walked around behind Graverobber. He started to remove the handcuffs.

"And another thing, don't talk back to me. You only need one eye to deal Z."

His hands were freed, and he rolled his shoulders a bit to try to start to get feeling back into them. The older man-Fred, he introduced himself gruffly-ushered him out.

They were standing in what appeared to be an old subway station, from the original construction of the city, far below the ground level of the new one. The ceiling curved above them, tall and tiled, and people walked about with a sense of purpose.

"Brian, show your friend to the infirmary."

The gangly youth gave him a grin and started bobbing his way towards what appeared to be an old security station. Inside, a handful of people that had been in the park were now being stitched up.

"Where's Ana? Anyone seen Ana?" Brian called the instant they were inside.

"She's in here. And for heaven's sake, bring that tall fellow next to you in here; I can't have him bleeding all over this place." The voice came from a small room off of the main one; beyond the doorway he could make out silver and white. The youth next to him took off, stopped, then returned.

Brian grabbed at Graverobber's sleeve, much to his surprise. It wasn't until he was seated in front of a very stout woman wearing old, red SurGen scrubs- obviously pilfered - that he realized that the sticky, wet feeling dripping down the side of his face was not just sweat, but blood, as evidenced by the cloth the woman was wiping at his forehead with.

"You got clocked pretty bad, huh?" she muttered with a snort. She was an older woman, with a no-nonsense, practical air to her, and she did not even turn to look as she reached for a brown bottle on a table behind her. She extracted a cotton ball from the pocket of her top and placed the cotton at the lip of the bottle, tilting it with a well-practiced motion. "I'd tell you to be careful next time, but none of you really listen, and usually you all come back with worse."

The liquid stung; a vague memory of this stuff, its sting and bubbling sensation, came back to him. The last time someone had used peroxide on him- shit, he must have been a kid. People had stopped using it, since Geneco Zydrate had some sort of antibiotic/antiseptic in it. He couldn't help but wince as she dabbed a liberal amount onto the wound at his temple..

"Stop that," the woman chastised. "I bet you all the credits in my pocket that it hurt more to get hit in the head than that." She rubbed some sort of ointment on it and went over to the sink to wash her hands before changing gloves.

Brian was hovering next to him, and it was starting to get annoying. "Is Ana alright?" he finally asked. Hands in the pockets, kid, the Graverobber thought, save face and stop wringing those hands like a little old broad.

Graverobber looked to the right of his chair, to the bed that he was situated next to. The girl in the black jumpsuit from the park, the one who had been in the woods with him, was now lying on the bed, wires peeking out from the opening of the suit. He couldn't really see her face, just the underside of her chin and her nose, but she had some sweet little curves to her body. If that Brian kid had a thing for her, he could see why.

"She's fine. I have her on the heart monitor for now, just to keep an eye out, but she should wake up in an hour or so-or now, just to prove me wrong. Welcome back, dear."

* * *

_The bright Nevada sun is warm against her bare shoulders, and she tries to soak it in, the heat and the breeze that's whipping her short hair around, the view before them. With a giddy feeling, she realizes that she has done it, has finally climbed the entire side of the cliff. A giddy grin sprouts on her features._

"_Don't get too happy, girly," grunts Fred. He's seated on the edge of the cliff and she can tell that he's enjoying the view just as much even if he won't admit to it. "Still gotta get back down, and I want to see that touchdown without you falling on your ass, you hear me?"_

_She nods, continuing to marvel at the landscape below._

"_You're learning fast. Picking up on everything I'm showing you."_

_Saying that it's easy is a lie, so she waits to see if he'll elaborate. The rocks are searing hot beneath her palms. _

"_If you can keep up, I'm gonna train you. Got my eye on a couple of you. Someone's going to need to take over when I'm gone, figure I might as well make sure whoever it is aint a complete fuck up." Fred spits over the side then glances over at her before wiping at a bead of sweat making its way down his forehead. "Look at you, up here and fancy free. A few months ago you were in that damn ward and pale as a ghost."_

"_Thanks. For saving my life." God, that sounds lame. Horribly so. Fred had been making a run for it and had seen her get shot trying to slip the barricade. He knew people on the outside, and he had taken her to a compound close by. A van had been waiting a few miles away from the barricade, and he'd carried her all the way to the vehicle. _

"_Just dragged your bony ass. You're the one who decided to come back from the dead. Resurrect yourself. Gonna find out a name that means that, other than Jesus, I guess. That's what I'm going to call you." _

_So far, she's been 'girly' and 'kid' or 'you'. Shilo Wallace had died back at the barricade-one of the last people to make it out had told her about the news coverage, and it was strange to think that an entire city thought she was dead. _

_After a few minutes they get ready to repel back down the side, and it leaves a fantastic queasy feeling in her stomach as she descends. She touches down, and stumbles, and when she falls she can feel_, the pillow behind her head, and the thin cushion she's laying on.

Anastasia woke up and instantly regretted it, because she felt like complete shit. With a wince, she tried to sit up.

She must have still been out of it, because the Graverobber was sitting at the foot of her bed.

* * *

'Alas, Madame, for stealing of a kiss' by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Illegitimis nil carborundum - Don't let the bastards grind you down

Luctor et emergo - I struggle but I'll survive

'I know him, that man/ walking- toward me up the crowded street' lines 1-2 of 'Chance Meeting' by Susan Browne

The phrases "what's hushed up and hidden" and "pissed, shitfaced, and brain-dead" are paraphrased from the poem 'Nightwatchman's Song' by the fantastic W.D. Snodgrass


	4. An Attractive, Lively Corpse

**Title: We Live in Deeds  
****Author: strangelittleswirl**  
**Fandom: ** Repo! the Genetic Opera**  
Pairing: **Graverobber/Shilo (eventually)**  
Rating:** R**  
Word Count:** 6,722  
**Summary:** 'Her name was Shilo Wallace once.' The aftermath of Opera, and the beginning of a new chapter in the city's history. **  
Warning: **Language, violence, and inferences to mature themes.**  
Disclaimer: ** I own nothing. I'm merely playing in the genius world created by DLB, DS, and TZ . I do not have any claims to the poetry used either.

* * *

Anastasia blinked and rubbed at her eyes a few times before returning her gaze to the end of the bed. What had they shocked her with?

She sat up with a groan. "Did I get hit with a corpse truck? Jesus."

Medi was looming over her, peeling off gloves with a frown. "You constantly make me consider getting a new face," she muttered. "Brian, would you help and make sure Anastasia eats something?"

Brian snapped to attention, happy to be needed. Ana twisted and dropped her legs over the side of the bed, her limbs heavy with exhaustion even as her heart beat a little faster.

Did it honestly matter that the guy at the end of her bed was Graverobber? It had to be, what with the makeup and multi-colored strands of hair. Under the makeup, she could make out the beginning of wrinkles, the sort that everyone in the city got with time. Pollution, lack of sunlight and vitamins. City faces reminded Ana of a sick plant, pale and translucent.

It was him, judging by the clothes and the general behavior. Even as Medi tended to his wounds, she caught his eye once or twice as she made her way out of the infirmary. Same cold blue, like a winter sky on the prairie.

Just why exactly was she nervous about him recognizing her? Perhaps because aside from Fred and two girls that had gone to her school-they had failed to recognize her and she continued to keep them in the dark-the Graverobber was the only person from her old life. Fred had birthed her, in a way, but this was someone who knew who she was then, all colt-like legs, knobby knees, and early adolescent awkwardness. He would have remembered Shilo Wallace, who had never actually killed a person. Shilo Wallace was not intimate with the term 'blood lust'. Shilo Wallace had not fucked someone against a garbage can. Shilo Wallace did not know the various pressure points on the body, and she hadn't seen a sunrise over the east coast. This realization, for some strange reason, caused her stomach to churn.

Brian led her with a hand around her wrist, weaving through the crowd, occasionally loudly announcing that he was on a mission from Medi. Usually that got people to shut up and do what they were told, one did not fuck with Medi if they knew what was best. She could be kind with the invalid, but she could also forget to put a the topical anaesthetic on if she did not like you.

Fred emerged from his office just as Ana was finished wolfing down a bowl of soup, eager for her instructor to explain to her what happened. Granted, it would come with a great deal of berating for allowing herself to be tasered, but still. Vaguely, she remembered the man in the woods, remembered thinking that he looked a great deal how the grave-pillaging peddler had looked like, but once she had recognized that he was not a threat, she had been too busy to take the time to see who it was.

"Sparky," barked their leader, and it only took a second for Ana to realize that he meant herself. Biting back a groan, she pushed herself out of her chair and followed him into the office.

"Don't pull that shit again," he muttered under his breath as Ana closed the door. She nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"That girl who went with you, she was one of our teachers. Her father was one before her."

The brunette waited, knowing full well what came next.

"She didn't make it back with you. You'd have already known that if you were conscious."

The soup was cement in her stomach, and there was too much of it, trying to come out all at once. She swallowed, hating it as she did so, and nodded.

"Is there family that needs to be notified?" Her team, her fault. Mischa would have a field day with this info.

"No, she was the last. There _is_, however, a group of kids waiting for her to teach tonight. This is a bit last minute, so you'll be covering her class."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Medi watched Brian leave with Ana and sighed, shaking her head. "Something is up with her," she said quietly before grabbing a wheeled stool and drawing it close to Graverobber. "Alright, to business. Fred says you're known as the Graverobber."

"The Graverobber, Graverobber, Grave, what have you."

She gave him a disproving look. There was something about this woman that made him wish he had scrubbed behind his ears before seeing her. "Right. Well, I know from the fact that you are sitting here that you made it safely past inspection from Fred and Pierre, so I can ask you about this. I need a steady Zydrate run to be dropped off routinely. We can't keep doing runs from outside the city; it's gotten to be too dangerous. And morphine, codeine...none of it has the same properties as Z. Even diluted, dirty Zydrate is better than that. So what do you say? Come round twice a week, receive routine pay?"

He shrugged and reached up to bother the bandage, which she stopped with a swat to his arm. "I enjoy being able to pay rent, so this sounds good to me."

She chuckled and gestured towards the door. "We've got a silent lock down going right now while we regroup and reassess, but feel free to mill about.

He nodded and was just about to exit the infirmary when she called him. "Watch that attitude, boy. Fred doesn't take shit, ok?"

He nodded, and after a second in which he wasn't sure what she was thinking, she smiled.

"Welcome to the Resistance, Graverobber."

* * *

Ana was excellent with demolition-sometimes, a Molotov cocktail was more impressive than a dirty bomb depending on the situation. She knew the name and make of every weapon that passed through a Resistance building's doors. Pressure points, triage, torture and interrogation techniques. Entomology was a breeze; poetry a passion.

Teaching was another thing.

The class had already assembled-when they were on lock down in the subway, an old gift shop inside the station took the place of their normal classroom. There was a smart board in the corner, and enough space, once the counters were removed, for desks. The shelves were now holding worse-for-wear tablets, and the master consol was up front, where Ana would stand.

By the time she arrived, the middle group was already assembled and sitting in their desks. Their faces fell when she entered, and the seven students looked down to their work.

Squaring her shoulders, Ana moved over to the consol and brought up the lesson plans for the day.

"Right, well," she started, thinking that perhaps it might help to sound like she knew what she was doing. She didn't. Not really. Hopefully the past teacher left detailed instructions, although it was looking to me the opposite case. After glancing at the children, she looked back down at the consol screen to read.

"Is Miss Lisa in the infirmary?" asked one of the students. "We want to bring her a card after class lets out."

"No," she responded quickly as she continued reading the screen.

"Well she's in the station, isn't she?" the same student asked again, a boy with chocolate-dark skin and eyes, she now noticed, just as dark and deep. The room had gone deadly quiet, and Ana realized what had just transpired. The young woman sighed and seated herself on top of the desk, facing the kids.

"Guys, I'm sorry, but she isn't. Miss Lisa did not make it back, and it was on my watch."

A little girl in the first row shrugged. "Death happens. Miss Lisa didn't have very good eyes," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "We lost Miss Lisa's mom the same way. What are we reading today?"

And like that, the class segued into normalcy, and Ana cautiously made her way through the lesson plans.

Three classes, each three times a week. Fred had made her take up teaching them for the time being, on top of her other responsibilities and her missions. Ana learned to be careful about possibly breaking a finger during a fight or training, because she'd have to grade papers later. She was drinking copious amounts of coffee. She couldn't complain; she never complained. Fred was teaching her a lesson: people were not expendable. Everyone helped their cause, and the loss of any was a great loss.

Ana couldn't help but frown as she thought of this, wiping at her face with a ratty towel. Mischa had already left her in the sparring area to clean up by herself-"I've got something I've gotta go do", he had called over his shoulder; probably with his tail between her legs-and she was enjoying the quiet when she heard the stairs creak. The petite brunette looked up to see Medi descending.

"So will you be hiding this afternoon?" the older woman asked. Ana kicked the underside of the mat to start to roll it up, and frowned yet again.

"What?"

Medi walked over and helped Ana roll up the mats. "I mean, every time I get a Zydrate drop off, you cannot be found. And you've been skittish recently."

"Got a class to teach." There was no way she was having this conversation, even if Medi was someone she could confide in, this wasn't one of those things she'd-

Medi was eyeing her with suspicion. "You've screwed your share of the guys around here, but I've never seen you so flustered as when you woke up and saw him in the infirmary. Out with it, girl."

Medi Flannagan had a gaze that equated to Sodium Pentothal. The truth came bubbling out, and all the while Medi listened.

"So he was one of the first people I really met outside of my home, and one of the last people to see me before I left the first time. I was young, he was a male and _nothing_ like my father, and so naturally I instantly was attracted to this bohemian man..." Ana shrugged. "But it's not like it meant anything; it was a little girl's crush, and I'm sure he doesn't even remember me."

Medi sighed, appearing to think over what the younger woman had shared as they climbed the stairs. "That still doesn't explain why you bail the second you see this guy. You're attractive, not deformed, and it's not like you've blown up to a ridiculous size. So why are you afraid for him to see you?"

Ana pushed past a few gathered people in the kitchen to the fridge to collect a bottle of water, waiting to continue their conversation as they set out of the back of the house to the warehouse a few blocks away. "Cowardice, maybe? Afraid I've built him up in my mind to be more than he really is? Medi, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be as fucked up as I am."

"You are _not_," retorted the woman sharply while wrapping a chocolate colored hand around Ana's arm, "fucked up. You are surviving, and I get that. You can't be textbook normal in a world that doesn't follow the rules of that textbook."

That last word caused Ana groan, cursing loudly enough for it to echo off of the walls around them. "That's right, we are starting the Modernists with the older kids today."

"I'm guessing that makes sense to you."

"It's a...a poetry thing. I'm more into Romanticism, but-what?" she asked, seeing her friend crack a smile.

"Never considered you a romantic."

The brunette shook her head. "No, no not like that, it's a movement in poetry with an emphasis on nature and symbolism and other boring stuff you probably don't want to hear about."

Medi nodded. "You'd be correct, now let's get going, you've got a class to teach and I'm sure there's a handful of people that need stitches.

* * *

The Graverobber was accustomed to secrets, to having his own and finding then out, to keeping them and keeping them from others. There was something about having a new one that left him with a feeling similar to that of having new shoes or new clothing. There were thousands of people he passed on the street who didn't know of his participation in the Resistance. There was a satisfaction in that knowledge.

Brian, for the past three weeks, had been appearing and guiding him to subway station to make his drop offs. It was time again, and with pockets laden with vials, he made his way to the predetermined rendezvous point. Brian was slouched against an old, crumbling Blind Mag concert advertisement; he was looking nervously down at his watch.

"You're late, we don't have a lot of time, you know." As far as greetings went, it was horrendous.

"There's always time, Brian. Time for murder and the taking of a toast and tea." Brian shook his head.

"Talking with you is like talking with Ana; I get this feeling that I need a glossary to fully understand you," the youth muttered. At the mention of the girl's name, Graverobber turned, raising an eyebrow in the process.

"For someone oft spoken of, she's very scarce."

"That's because she's stuck with teaching right now," said Brian, blushing at the graveyard prowler's observation-this kid was head over heals in that sad sort of way. "And doing a lot of other stuff. She's, like, really important and stuff. She and Misch-Misch both are. But she's really good with poetry and shit, so they asked her to instruct, I guess."

The two men slipped under a fence and through an alley, then seemed to double back on their route for a short time before veering in another direction. Eventually they ended at a derelict warehouse. Brian extracted a key from his pocket and opened a chain-link fence to allow them both through.

"The classroom is in the old worker's lounge over there," said Brian, after they were patted down, scanned for bugs, and allowed into the building. "That's where the classroom is."

"Thanks, kid," muttered Graverobber, although he had no intention of actually going to look in on the class. He did, however, have to go in that direction, because Medi's kingdom of cots and privacy screens took up the corner near-by.

Medi waved him over to a folding table that had been set up as a desk for the woman. She pulled out a small cooler from underneath and unlocked the padlock on it. "Dump 'em, I can't really talk right now. Setting a bone for Mischa here, who simply cannot, for the life of him, remember what I tell him about his tricky shoulder." She disappeared behind a curtain but then popped her head back out. "Thank you."

And with that his task was finished. It seemed like a waste of a trip if he didn't get something out of it-besides his pay of course. Perhaps he'd go to the canteen section and get something to eat. A warm meal under a roof on a cold night like this would be worth it.

The door was open to the lounge, and in front a group of teenaged children on rickety couches, sitting cross-legged upon a desk, was the Ana of Brian's fame. Her head was turned facing a stick-thin shaggy blonde girl asking a question about symbolism, to which another student responded.

"I dunno, I felt like using the words 'Repo Men' in my poem. It made it sound kinda creepy, with the repetition, I thought," explained the boy.

"Good, Chase. The rhythm of the words really helped. Repo Men," said the teacher, playing with the word, feeling it and tasting it. "You know, no one else has them on the outside. It's all ours, our very own 'thin men of Haddam', I guess."

It was that girl. The Repo Man's daughter. Shilo Wallace. No one else would talk like that.

Those eyes had never sparkled like that, however, and the lopsided grin had only just begun to be feminine the last time he had seen it. Her face had lost some of its youthful roundness, well a lot of it, actually. There was a gauntness to her, a look of routinely missing a few meals here or there. The tan she sported-he remembered them from his childhood: brief memories of his mother's friends, returning from vacations with golden brown skin like that.

In all his years in his particular and singular line of work, he had not seen a ghost, not a real one at least. Granted, occasionally a pair of GeneCo eyes which had not been removed prior to death would suddenly turn on, broadcasting a latent memory or two, but the Graverobber had attributed it to buggy technology. But the woman before him-tan and very real-must have been a ghost. Shilo Wallace had died escaping from the city, year ago.

The class had moved onto a new subject, but as they flipped through the old textbooks, Shilo's gaze traveled towards the door and Graverobber for a moment before continuing with her lessons.

Medi was calling for him to come over, which gave him an excuse and incentive to tear himself from his place outside the doorway, so he left and walked back over to the infirmary.

Shilo Wallace was alive. Shilo Wallace was Ana. Things were making less sense with each passing second.

* * *

Once upon a time, two young men had a genius idea, a way to save those who were dying around them. Their small, upstart cloning business-it was mostly old women who wanted cats and dogs cloned-could be the location of a great change in their dying society.

Rotti had the business brains, and his friend Malcolm had a great grasp of the scientific parts of it. Together they set the plans in motion to make Geneco a household name. Malcolm would work in the labs and out of the spotlight, and Rotti would create the image. The money slowly started to pour in, and success was theirs.

For a time.

Then Malcolm had become bedridden, and remained so for many years before finally succumbing to the poison that had been laced in his coffee and later his intravenous drip of morphine.

Poor little Malcolm Junior. Luigi had never liked him. As children they had terrorized one another-when Luigi was not in the psychiatric ward, of course. Or under house arrest.

Beneath him, the girl cried out.

Luigi pulled a little harder on her hair, causing her back to arch a little more, and he continued. Pavi had whined last time that he not played nicely with their new little toy, so this time he was putting her through the ringer. Just beyond the door was a team of SurGens and Genterns, waiting to swoop in after he was finished. A few stitches, a little more Zydrate, and she'd be escorted down the hall to his brother.

Sloppy seconds for the Pavi. Amber's decomposing face had caused his younger brother to lose some of his admirers. Stories had gotten out about the two of them-bitches who had been returned to their parents a few years ago, after that ridiculous school had burnt down-Shilo Wallace, that cunt-had caused them to lose their popularity. Luigi had picked his way though the Genterns.

For fuck's sake, he couldn't even kill them anymore, people were watching.

At some point boredom had taken over and the brothers had decided to have a competition; sharing the whores had meant an equal playing field.

Take this one, for instance. Dirt poor, had been at the school. After the fire, she'd gone into the makeshift program while the school was rebuilt. With her glasses and her braids back then, she looked like that chick on the old beer packages at first. Dozens of surgeries later, and you couldn't recognize her.

After one last thrust, he climaxed with a grunt. The girl below him was quiet, having given even crying at this point. Bitch was lucky. She'd been tossed from Geneco employee to Geneco employee, working her way up the ranks, on her back and her knees; others didn't provide her the meals, SurGens, or other small luxuries afforded to her in the Largo house. And all they asked in return was for her to shut up and lay back.

* * *

Glenda drew her robe back on, feeling the soreness in all of her muscles. The tears were getting ready to spill again, and she tried to contain them until she got out into the hallway, where the staff would whisk her away, give her a hit of Z, and stitch her up.

Hobbling towards their office, on the arm of a Gentern, she made her way past Amber's office. Just out of the corner of her eye, she made out the Head Repo Man, with his dead eyes. He gave her the creeps. She was happy they hadn't asked her to fuck him.

Walking to the SurGen office allowed her to pass a window-a real one. Bullet-proof and barred, she could still look through it and see the world below. She wanted that world, ached for it. She wanted to get out of this. Why had she ever allowed this to start?

There was a mirror just outside the SurGen's door. As the Gentern swiped them in, Glenda spared a glance into it. No more freckles. Perfectly blue eyes. Her hair was red for the time being, loose and wavy, nothing like the tight curls she tamed and bound in braids before.

Her last thought, before succumbing to the icy-hot burn of Geneco Zydrate, was of the window, the space, and the freedom.

* * *

After class the class let out it was time to go down to the basement and check on the latest raid's scores. Ana knew that it was with a look bordering on lust that she looked at a Dessert Eagle that had turned up; the reassuring weight was beautiful. The whole lot of the guns were pre Wi-Fi-they'd continue to function even after Brian shut down part of the city's gun grid. Finally, she settled upon a smaller standard Glock, enjoying the light heft and the familiarity. These were what she had learned to shoot with, and even with her eyes closed she could see the ammo textbook pages clearly.

But sooner than she would have wished, it was time for dinner. One of girls around her age was tittering over the 'new guy in the long trench', so she knew he was still there. Tonight, at least, was clean up duty for her, which meant at least an hour in the kitchen afterwards.

Mischa and his men came back, minus only some blood and a bit of someone's ear; it was a victory, and the entirety of the group was positively giddy with satisfaction.

Normally dinner was jovial and loud, one of the few times that Ana and the rest would let their guard down for a little while. But not tonight. Tonight she sat ate briskly and quickly got up to do the dishes in the old industrial cafeteria's kitchen.

She had been in the kitchen for at least ten minutes before he followed her-she was just about to answer one of Pierre's questions when the door to the industrial kitchen whined and opened, and there stood the Graverobber. The petite girl went back to packing food up, watching the newcomer out of the corner of her eye.

"Medi needs you," he announced, jerking his head at Pierre. For a moment, her bulky friend seemed to consider, then in a strange voice he said, "She needs me?" and off he went.

The kitchen door whimpered and shut, and Ana went about her task. He was watching her, and she tried to keep it from bothering her.

"Wallace Stevens?" he asked, finally, and she had to look up. Quickly, she shrugged and went back to work.

"Working off of the course material. Another guy is going to be coming in to teach; I'm getting to the point where I might shank one of them."

He chuckled and leaned against the industrial freezer, arms crossed and a leg crossed over the other one. "Don't remember you being that outwardly violent."

"Genetic, but I didn't have to be hostile, back then." Sure, it was flippant, but it felt good. Something about him this close made her feel tense.

He was studying her, head slightly to the side, all loose-limbed arrogance and shoddy clothes. He probably stole them off of the corpses. Good taste, regardless.

But then she met his eyes. She had forgotten that his eyes were blue; somewhere in her memories she had remembered them as something darker, more in keeping with the character that he seemed to play-dark brown, almost black, perhaps.

"Can I let you in on a secret?" he asked, suddenly cheerful, as he strolled over and popped a grape into his mouth. She shrugged, as now her hands were in the sink and she was up to her elbows in dishwater.

"There's a lot of them around here."

He made a noise then, at the back of his throat, as if he was considering that statement thoughtfully, then the faint smell of patchouli and death that had been present since he entered became stronger as he leaned closer. Sweat, dirt, life itself, that's what he smelled like, too. "I have no fucking clue what's going on." He whispered into her ear, breath hot upon her ear. The Zydrate dealer pulled back, giving her a conspiratorial, wolfish grin. Oh, but she hadn't worn that red hood for years...

"Most people are in the dark, too. And if you want answers, you better roll up those sleeves and help me with this shit. Everything has a price, Graverobber."

* * *

The dishes were caked with crumbs and grease, and the platter slid oily through his fingers in the murky water.

"So most people are aware of the Resistance in some form or another. Most just think we're fighting against Geneco for the sake of fighting-that's where they start underestimating us. A lot of people think that we're just plain stupid, fighting against the only company keeping us alive." She leaned towards him, eyes bright and passionate. "That's where they're wrong.

"Do you know that the United States still exists?"

"Yeah, on old dollar bills," he scoffed. "Aside from some freaks on the woods, this city is it."

She shook her head and took the platter from him, rinsing it off now that he had scrubbed the baked-on grease from it. "Nope. East coast still has cities scattered along the edge. While I was out there, we were working on a study; we're pretty sure our exposure to the ocean breeze, the wind patterns and shit? That's what saved this place. Not Geneco-they just profited, tried to find a solution to the problem. I mean, every once in a while, someone still dies because of organ failure, but for the most part, you're looking at a population of people who became resistant to the disease."

"Science shit, trippy," he commented, for lack of something more to say.

"So there were a couple of groups in the city, rebelling and shit. But it wasn't until we started organizing, linking up with some of the survivors outside of the city, that we were able to become unified."

"So that's how the Resistance was formed: stream-lining some anarchy?" He took the towel that she tossed to him and started to dry out some of the cups.

"Yup. This place make look pretty shoddy, but believe me, we're more organized than you could even imagine. Budget, health, sustainability...we have departments for all of it. A city within the city."

They continued with the cleaning for a short time in silence. The urge to ask her, to continue this conversation, weighed too heavy on his shoulders.

"But what about you?"

The dark haired young woman stared at him blankly. "_What_ about me? I told you everything."

He took the moment-really, it presented itself, didn't it?-to give her a lingering look. Oh yes, this was not the little Shilo Wallace of knobby knees and sickly pallor that had followed behind him, a shadow sprite of sorts. "I've never seen such an attractive, lively corpse before."

Shilo raised an eyebrow. "That attempt was deplorable-but points for an attempt. Left, got shot crossing the border. Fred dragged my carcass with him, I was patched up, he kicked my ass into gear, and I've been working for him ever since."

"And the name change?"

The girl turned to study the dish she was wiping off. "I just needed to, I guess."

Now _that_ he understood.

He realized then that the dishes were clean, and that they had worked so smoothly together and diligently while they were talking that neither had realized the job was finished.

* * *

It was burning her from the inside out. It had been, what, four months since she had used street Z? Too long, too fucking long.

Amber scratched at her arm, watching as the marks became pink and raised on her pale skin. She tapped her foot.

She called one of the Genterns in, the one she knew was using. The girl looked at her nervously. "Yes, Miss Sweet?"

"When was the last time you saw Graverobber?"

The girl blanched. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, Miss Sweet."

"Oh, fuck off," the woman-blonde today-spat, and decided she disliked the paperweight on her desk enough to hurl it at the Gentern. More of both of them, where they came from. Both easy to replace if it came to it. "I know you see him, he hits you up. Where the fuck is he?"

"I-I don't know miss, I haven't seen him around that much, recently."

She threw money at the girl. "Well, go find him and bring me back some. Don't think I wouldn't know how much that buys; I better see all of it. Or I'll let the boys' little fuck toy have a night off and you can take her place."

The girl scurried off and she realized she had been scowling. That wouldn't do at all.

It could leave wrinkles.

* * *

Notes:

Graverobber's comment about time is paraphrased from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, a Modernist poet-going by James Ledbetter's analysis, Prufrock is a prophet poet who goes unnoticed in a society that is disbelieving and ignorant; the character seems to give up because of this. If you've got access to literary databases (ex: through your school) try to look up the article.

'thin men of Haddam' is taken from line 25 of 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens, and Stevens made it up, saying it was a Yankee-sounding phrase


End file.
